Patricia Hibberd, MD, PhD is a clinical investigator dedicated to patient oriented research. She has an institution wide leadership role in mentoring and clinical research career development of junior faculty, Fellows, residents and medical students at Tufts New England Medical Center (Tufts-NEMC) and Tufts University School of Medicine. She directs the Division of Clinical Research Resources in the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts-NEMC. She is also Program Director of the Tufts- NEMC General Clinical Research Center, Advisory Board Member for NHLBI K30 Tufts-NEMC-Sackler Clinical Research Curriculum Grant, Associate Director for a T32 Training Grant and faculty advisor for 6 additional institutional training grants. She has mentored 27 individuals, almost all of whom are productive clinical researchers. Over the past 10 years, Dr Hibberd's research has focused on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), where she has continued her strong track record of successful research and mentorship. The purpose of this K24 award is to provide Dr Hibberd with protected time to enable her to further her own research and mentor junior investigators interested in using rigorous clinical research methodology to understand mechanisms of action and the safety and efficacy of CAM therapies. Dr Hibberd has two research grants to study probiotics in the prevention of infection and she is core faculty/coinvestigator of a funded program project on the mechanisms and therapeutic effects of the relaxation response. Her research goals for this award are to expand the scope of funded research being conducted by her multidisciplinary team of basic and clinical research scientists who are dedicated to understanding the mechanisms of action of CAM therapies and their clinical effects in patients. Goals for the mentees are to obtain formal training in clinical research methodology, ethics and regulatory science, to conduct mentored pilot studies of CAM therapies and to develop grant applications for patient oriented research, the mentoring plan entails a) providing trainees with a CAM specific research "laboratory" environment, b) developing didactic coursework that focuses on the unique and specific challenges of conducting CAM research; c) providing mentees with stable, high-level analytic capacity and computing support; and d) providing longer-term career support through research "check-ups" to increase and sustain the pool of well-trained CAM clinical researchers. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]